Kristin Neff

what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Kristin Neff, a self compassion researcher, author, and associate professor at the University of

Texas at Austin. She got her pH d at the University of California in Berkeley in the field of moral development. While doing her postdoctoral work, she decided to conduct research on self compassion, a central construct in Buddhist psychology and one that had not been examined empirically. In addition to her pioneering research into self compassion, she has developed an

eight week program to teach self compassion skills. The program, co created with her colleague Chris Germer, affiliated with Harvard Medical School, is called Mindful Self Compassion. Her book Self Compassion, The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself was recently released in paperback. Kristen and her family were recently featured in the documentary and book called The Horseboy. And here's the interview with Kristin Neff. Hi, Kristen, Welcome to the show. Hello,

how are you. I'm doing good. I'm happy to have you on it. You and I had some scheduling challenges the last time we were going to do this. I was driving to get set up for the interview and my boy broke his finger, so that took us that we had to reschedule that. So I'm glad we got to finally get this scheduled. Yes, good to be here. So our podcast is called The One You Feed and

it's based on the parable of two Wolves. And in the parable, there is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter, and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, looks up at her grandmother and says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by ask can you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, well, it's really key. I mean, it's a parable and I'm very familiar with and it's really about to me setting your intention. Right, we don't

have total control over how our life unfolds. We don't even have control over our thoughts and emotions moment to moment. But the seeds of intention we planned toward being, you know, and with my work, or being compassionate and kind with oneself, or harsh and critical and judgment all of oneself, that's really what's going to manifest in terms of the mind state you inhabit. So it's really setting your intention firmly on compassion and then just let the wolf do its

own thing. But the one who gets fed is probably going to be stronger, healthier, and more vibrant. So your research primarily focuses on self compassion. And my first question would be, how is self compassion different than self esteem? Well, there's a pretty important difference. UM. Self esteem refers to a positive evaluation of self worth. In other words, that I'm a good person as opposed to a bad person. Um. Self compassion does not entail judgment or evaluation at all.

In fact, what it does is simply a way of relating to yourself kindly, like you would relate to a good friend. So whereas self esteem deserves you, when you fail or make a mistake, or you look in the mirror and you've noticed you've gained twenty pounds, whatever it is that shakes your self esteem, um, you know, it's

just not there for you to rely on anymore. Whereas self compassion is a much more reliable friend, because even when you fail, or you feel inadequate, or something that's gone terribly wrong in your life, you can still support yourself um like a friend and treat yourself with kindness. So research pretty strongly differentiates the two and shows that although both are strongly linked to well being, you're happier less depressed if you have self esteem or self compassion.

Self compassion isn't contingent and unstable the way self esteem is. And so you started by taking self compassions as an idea that you had been taught in various different spiritual settings, and then you decided that what you want to do is take it into the lab and do research on how it works and how effective it is. So are what are some of the things that you found in your research about what self compassion does for us? Right? Well, Um,

the research on self compassion really is exploding. It so gratifying for me to see. Um. And so we do know in terms of basic links to well being that people who are more self compassionate, they tend to be happier, they tend to be more optimistic, more satisfied with their lies. Um. They're also less likely to be depressed or full of anxiety or shame. So their overall functioning is more positive,

more healthy on a day to day basis. But um, what's been really interesting coming out more recently is research showing that a lot of the fears and misgivings we have about self compassion aren't true. So I'll give you one example on a lot of people are afraid that if they're self compassionate the loser edge, they won't be motivated to achieve their goals, are just going to be kind of passive or self indulgent or lazy. Um. And in fact, what the research shows quite clearly is it

self compassion enhances motivation. Right, So, just like if you're a good supportive friend to yourself encouraging not that there's no criticism. If the criticism is constructive as opposed to harsh and belittling, that type of feedback is much more productive in terms of encouraging you to make needed changes or to learn and grow. Um. One of the big findings coming out is that if you're self compassionate, you're less afraid of failure. It's safe to fail, right, you're

human being, you're perfect like everyone else. You failed sometimes failures part of the learning experience, and so when you're less afraid of failure, you're more willing to take risks. When you do fail, you get less derailed by it. You stay, you stay confident in yourself, and you're more allowedly to try again and to persist in trying even when things that are difficult. So really, it's uh, it's

pretty clear that self compassion increases, not decreases motivation. I think there's a sense that we all have that being really critical and hard on ourselves is the way that we drive results. That's by by not letting up on ourselves. And it seems that the research you're doing shows that that is not the case. And in one of your books you say that self criticism is strongly linked with depression and it creates sort of a perpetual cycle, a

downward spiral. Yes, that's right. So when we were self critical, let's say you blew a big work assignment, right, So you've got two ways to respond to that, either with hard self criticism idiot like in the in the belief that if I'm really hard on myself, I'll never blow it again. You know, maybe if I were to just try that a little bit harder, I would be perfect

perfection as possible. Right, So what happens when you take that stance towards yourself is, first of all, when you when you call yourself names, which a lot of people do, and I'm ashamed of myself. I'm worthless. We undermine our own self confidence, which is very bad for motivation and achieving our goals. We also create an anxious state of mind. It's like, um, you know, I can't fail again, and if I try again, what if I fail? I can't fail?

And we get very um, we get very fearful, fear of failure, and just we have a lot of performance anxiety because the states are so high. If we do fail and we know that, performance anxiety undermines our ability to do our best. Whereas if we're compassionate and understanding and we just basically ask ourselves to do the best we can, knowing even if we fail, will still support and be there for ourselves, then that creates the optimal state of mind to do our best. In your research,

you've identified three pillars of self compassion. What are those three pillars and how do those help us to practice self compassion? The first one is really how you relate to yourself when you fail or feel inadequate, or life just becomes very difficult. Do you relate to yourself with kindness, care and support, or do you relate yourself with a sense of relate to yourself with harsh criticism. Again, that punitive, cold, harsh, driving behavior that we think good for us but actually

turns out not to be all right. So a self compassion we're carrying, we're supportive or understanding. We don't beat ourselves up. And more than that, just like you will with a friend who we're distressed or we're really struggling, we actively soothe and comfort ourselves. Okay, it's really one of the most powerful aspects of self compassion is the

ability to soothe and comfort ourselves when we're feeling emotional pain. Um. The second kind of pillar of self compassion, as you call it's very important to remember this one is framing our experience, our experience of human imperfection, in light of the shared human experience, remembering that all people have both weaknesses and strengths, and that all people struggle at some point in their lives. It's part of what it means

to be a human. Now, this is in contrast to our more habitual way of relating to ourselves when, especially when we fail, is there is a feeling and this isn't really a logical thought process, it's an emotional reaction. There's a feeling. Let's say you fail at some big task. This shouldn't be happening. You know, this isn't supposed to be happening. I should have been able to get it right, and the fact that I didn't mean something is wrong.

And implicit in that assumption that this shouldn't be happening is that somehow everyone else in the world is living a perfectly normal, perfect life and it's just me who's failed, or just me who's gotten that diagnosis, right, just me who's facing that challenge. So we when we fall into the illusion of thinking that failure or suffering is somehow abnormal, we feel really isolated from the rest of humanity. And

it's that sense of isolation. Research is starting to suggest that that sense of isolation and our own imperfection is especially psychologically damaging. So with self compassion, when we remember that actually this is normal. Failure is normal, facing life challenges is normal, but in fact every moment of suffering becomes an opportunity for connection. And then the last part of self compassion I talk about is something that people

are pretty familiar with these days, and that's mindfulness. Okay, So, typically when something unpleasant happens, some painful situation comes up. We don't want to face it. We want to either avoid it and like you know, stuff it down, not think about it, or else we get really reactive and resistant, get angry and frustrated at the fact that this has happened. And when we're in that state of mind, either avoiding our experience or fighting it madly, usually with self criticism,

we can't open our hearts to ourselves. We have to be able to pause mindfully and recognize that this is really hard right now, right, this is a moment of suffering. This is uh, this is challenging. I'm experiencing some emotional pain. We need to be able to turn toward our own pain, be with it long enough in order for us to validate it, and then you know, have a compassionate response. So that's it's very important that we're willing to turn toward our pain then embrace it with the sense of

warmth and connections. And here's the rest of the interview with Kristin Neff. So how do we go about practicing self compassion? So I listened to this, you know, one of our listeners listens and goes, yeah, I am really hard on myself. I believe that's not a very helpful strategy. So I'm going to be more self compassionate to myself. Is it as simple as just deciding to do that? Or are there particular steps that you recommend? How do I get from here to there? Well, it is easier

than you might think, right. I wasn't sure how hard it would be for people to change their habits. But actually, people, if it is a choice, you have to aid decide that you're worthy of kindness. You know, not by not by virtue of any special accomplishment other than being an imperfect human being, which most of us can manage. Right, So if you decide you're worthy of being kind, then actually most of us have a lot of experience in knowing how to be kind. Again, the place to start

is maybe to do a little inventory. How do I treat my friends when they're suffering or upset, or feel inadequate in some way, maybe failed in some way? Um? And how do I treat myself in those same circumstances. The vast majority of people are a lot kinder, more patient, and more understanding to others than they are to themselves. So the good news is if you don't if you

think out or how to be kind to myself. You can just simply imagine, well, what would I say to a dear friend who was going through the exact same situation I was. You know, we know what to say, we know the tone of voice to use. We usually know how to soothe people close to us or upset or children or close friends, maybe our partner. And just try adopting that same tone and um language with yourself. And that's one way what you say to yourself is important.

Another thing that people have access to which they don't take advantage of, is what we call soothing touch. Okay, as mammals, we have that what's called them a million caregiving system. It's or sometimes it's referred to as the attachment system. It's basically the system that makes the mother want to care for and keep poor infant child safe, and that keeps the infant child m desirous of maintaining

contact with the mother so it feels safe. And this is what gives mammals their advantage as they have belong developmental period to adapt to the environment. But that means that all mammals, but especially primates and especially human primates or bone born the most immature. There are three main triggers of this compassion soothing caregiving system, and that is physical warmth, a gentle touch, and soothing vocalizations that's really tone.

So what you can do when you're upset is simply touch yourself with kindness, maybe put your hands over your heart, give yourself a hug, hold your own hand and like you might hold the hand of a child. I really encourage people to experiment to find some sort of types that feels supportive and calming. People actually are pretty pretty different what works for them, but this is something that

is instantly available. Right your body gets feels calmed, ensued by the warmth of your hands, by the gentle pressure of your touch, by the tone of your internal dialogue, even before your mind can go there. So that's that's something that people really can take advantage of almost immediately. Yeah, that idea of talking to ourselves as we would talk to a friend is one of those very simple pieces

of wisdom that, if implemented, is so powerful. And one of the things I like about that so much is I think my experience of internal self conversation tends to oscillate between extremely self critical or on the other hand, extremely indulgent myself, like you deserve, you know, a hundred hot fudge Sundays today because you've had such a bad day.

And when I think about how I would treat a friend who is going through a similar situation, it's that mixture of kindness, but I also would would have their better interest at heart, there would be a sense of accountability. It seems to strike that right balance between the two places that I'm naturally prone to go in my own

head when dealing with myself. YEA, so absolutely, I mean indulgence, whether it's self indulgence or it's a mother maybe indulgient or child, that's not compassionate, because indulgence really means giving yourself short term pleasure at the expense of long term harm and care about yourself, and you want to alleviate your own software and you aren't going to engage in self indulgent behavior, right, So sometimes compassion can be a

little fierce. Sometimes compassion can say, hey, you know, you've got to stop this. This is harming you. It's it's really not your best interests I care about you. I mean, you can actually have a conversation with yourself saying things like this, I care about you. You're suffering, Um, can you please try to do things differently? And I'm here

to support and encourage you. So it's not like our inner compassion itself or the self compassion doesn't want change to happen, or doesn't want to end harmful behaviors or you know, again do things that are going to be healthy and productive. It's really all on how it's approached. Is it approached with warmth, kindness, and friendliness, and if so, those messages are much more likely to be received. Or is it approach with a harsh, punitive tone, which basically

is like pulling the rug out from underneath yourself. It makes the worst possible mental state of mind to make effective change, right. Yeah, it's that idea of you know, we're kind of circling back on that, the self criticism, But my experience has certainly been that is not an effective driver of change. It just doesn't work that way. Certainly for me, in battling with addictions in the past and different things, the times where I was, you know, most harsh to myself were not the times that led

to recovery. I think it was almost when I started to talk to myself in a different tone. Talk to myself in that kind tone. That's when change started to be possible. It's important to remember, though, that we also don't want to criticize ourselves from criticizing our health's up for beating ourselves up, because if we actually understand what the process of self criticism is doing. Also, criticism really

stems from when we feel threatened in some way. Right, So when we failed, for instance, our self concept is threatened and our body doesn't know the difference between our self concept being threatened and the bare charging us. Right, all we think is threat to self. So um, we get really scared. And by the way, this is why we tend to criticize ourselves more than our friends. Because my friend fails, it doesn't threaten me, but I feel I feel threatened, so I go into this fight or

flight mode. Unfortunately I turned that on myself. I attacked the problem. The problem is me. But it's all coming underneath from an actually good place, and that's a desire to be safe. So you might say inner critic is like a tantumine two year old, it's not very mature, doesn't give us advice. Well, it's actually usually completely counterproductive. But it's intention is good, which is it's trying to

keep you safe. And in fact, one of the ways to make it easier to access motivating ourselves and you know, the desire to keep ourselves safe and happy and well with compassion is by kind of giving some kudos to the self critic. You know, hey, thank you for caring. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. Um. You know, I get you. I hear your message. You don't have

to shout so loudly. I get it. There's danger here, okay, And then we can use this more mature more UM were recently involved them million caregiving system to provide that sense of safety. Right, it's really about it's a skill in how we talk to ourselves. The self critic is not bad, it's just it's just um. And it's also the most easily trigger safety system. So it's not surprising we're so habitually hard on ourselves. But we don't really want to be, you know, running our lives from our

reptilian brain. We want to have more mature, aware responses, which comes from this place of kindness is opposed to fear and threat. Is it a slippery slope between self compassion and self pity, right, So that's why common humanity is so important. Common humanity and mindfulness. Okay, if you are just kind of feeling sorry for yourself and saying, oh, that's terrible, poor thing, but you forget about common humanity,

then it becomes poor me, whoe was me? So it's self focused, and there tends to be kind of an exaggeration and over dramatization of the suffering common humanity? Is it for me? Common humanity as well? Life's difficult for everyone, So I'm including myself from the circle of compassion, but I'm certainly not saying my problems are worse than anyone else's.

So that keeps it from being so self focused. And the mindfulness, which is kind of a clear balance seeing an acceptance of things as they are, and prevents us from running away with this exaggerated storyline of how bad things are. The moren't for those two elements, actually self kindness could slip into self pity. So all three we really need to be present. So one of the things that you said in one of your books is that suffering stems from a single source, comparing our reality to

our ideals. When reality matches our wants, and desires were happy and satisfied. When reality doesn't match our wants and desires, we suffer. How does self compassion help with this pretty common human problem? I hope I'm not getting into technical here, But this thing about accepting reality as it is basically

not banging our head against reality which makes things worse. Um, it's really referring a little more to mindfulness that the peace of mind, the equanimity we gain when we accept that things are often not as we like them to be. Their their their heart, they're difficult, they're scary. Um, we don't know what succeed. Things happen. You know, at the very least, we're all going to get sick and old

and die. Right, that's life. But the warmth part of self compassion, the kindness, basically embraces ourselves in the midst of this acceptance that life is difficult. So it says, yes, you know, okay, I'll give you a personal example right where I really saw this, um come bear fruit my self compassion practice. My son has autism, and when he was diagnosed with autism, Um, it was you know, I don't want to face it, I didn't want to accept it.

Surely there must be some mistake. Um, But because of my mindfulness practice, I was fairly quickly being able to say, hey, listen, this is what life has dealt you. We need to accept it. I'll just make it worse if I fight against this reality. But the compassion, I was able to soothe and comfort myself care for myself in the midst of it. So, you know, honor the fact that this is hard. And I tried to be kind to myself, and I tried to be supportive with myself and caring,

and that actually allowed me. Um that that kind of self support needed to fully open to and accept my experience. So you might say that compassion is always aimed at soothing, comforting, caring for the experience or i e. Ourselves when things are really difficult and painful. What lesson would you say that it has taken you the longest to learn in your life? Um boy, that's a big question. There are

still there are still lessons I'm learning. So for instance, you know, kind of in terms of how I'm wired, I'm actually a fairly reactive person. Right My My first instinct isn't to give a calm, balanced response if I feel threatened in some way, My first instinct is to be kind of challenging and reactive, and so I don't know if I will ever change. That might be part of my wowing. But what I'm learning is UM to basically the the notice when I'm triggered, and again immediately

myself soothing and comfort and kindness. Because I'm trigger does not expect that I shouldn't be UM and then so hopefully that cannot give my give myself the sense of safety to maybe pause and not just react, or to be totally honest. At this point. Often what happens is I do react, but almost immediately I'm able to catch myself and apologize, so no lasting harm is done to relationships. Something may come out of my mouth and I say, oh my god, I'm so sorry, I was totally out

of line. Please forgive me right. So, UM, you know that one is just we are. I'm perfect, and we don't know us act the way we want. But if you can, I find that if you can own it, and you can allow yourself to be vulnerable and especially admit when we've caused harm in some way or we're out of line, most people are pretty forgiving, but you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable. You can try to protect your ego or defend your ego and try

to blow off responsibility. And the more you do that, I should say that it's easier to do when you give yourself unconditional love and acceptance. Excellent. So tell me very briefly about the Center for Mindful Self Compassion. Yes,

So what's been really exciting? You know, I've been researching self compassion for about fifteen years now, UM, but about five years ago I teamed up with a man named Chris Germer, who is actually one of the main people who brought meditation and the psychotherapy founded the Meditation and Psychotherapy Institute, and we decided we wanted to create a kind of structured workshop in order to teach people how

to be self compassionate in their daily life. So we developed an intervention which is eight sessions where we meet once a week for eight weeks, two and half hours each session, and we've developed a variety of exercises, small group exercises, meditations that really seem to help people learn the skill self compassion. And so we just founded, um this center. We got our nonprofit status recently, UH to help really spread this throughout the world, and we're teaching

people to teach the program to others. We're not only teaching the program, we're training teachers to teach the program in the local communities. And uh, if people want to find out about that, they can actually link to my website or go to center form messy dot org um and there may even be of course near you if you want to check that out. We're growing by leaps and bounds all over the world. It's very exciting. Yeah,

there are a lot of courses out there. I was looking at the page earlier and we will have links to Kristen's work as well as the Center for Mindful Self Compassion in the show notes. Well, Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been a pleasure talking with you, and I've really enjoyed reading your books and and learning more about self compassion. So thanks so much. Thanks so much for having me, and thanks for the great work you do in the world. I appreciate it.

All right, thank you, take care, Okay, okay, good bye. You can learn more about this podcast and Kristin nef at one you feed dot net slash NF that's n e f F. Thanks